Open now at Lehmann Maupin in Chelsea is ‘She’s Come UnDone!’, an exhibition of photographs, paintings, and collages by Mickalene Thomas. This is Thomas’s first solo show in New York, coming on the heels of growing international attention in the past few years. Thomas is known for paintings of black women, sometimes nude, often in a kitschy 1970s domestic setting with lots of woodgrain paneling and animal prints, and incorporating a lot of rhinestones.

Presently on show at PaceWildenstein (534 W 25th st) is Richard Tuttle’s first solo show at the gallery. The exhibition includes twelve new works that were executed in 2008. All twelve pieces, measuring roughly 1’ x 10’, are made up of two rectangles of dyed fabric cloth with sown in grommets, allowing each piece to hang on nails. For Tuttle, these latest additions to his oeuvre alleviate the ambiguity of dichotomy and of the abstract and the real and instead make manifest the prospect of harmony and a new beginning. The works are paired with a DVD, showing a conversation between Tuttle and Arne Glimcher, director and founder of Pace Art Gallery in New York.

A tapestry replica of Picasso’s famous 1937 anti-war painting Guernica will be exhibited at the Whitechapel in London. Commissioned by Norman Rockefeller, the tapestry is currently displayed at the United Nations Headquarters in New York outside the Security Council Chamber. It is now arriving at the Whitechapel as part of Polish-born London artist Goshka Macuga’s installation that will feature the tapestry for a reopening of the Whitechapel after a ₤13.5 million re-development. The refurbishment of the gallery is by Belgian architects Robbrecht & Daem and Yaya nominee Witherford Watson Mann.

Starting Wednesday, April 1st is ‘Chewing Color,’ a video installation curated by Marilyn Minter as the latest presentation of At 44 1/2, Creative Time’s collaboration with MTV. ‘Chewing Color’ comes after a series of videos by Gilbert & George, Malcom McLaren, and other artists, shown on MTV Studios’ gigantic high definition screen in the midst of Times Square, between 44th and 45th Streets. Films in the series include Minter’s ‘Green Pink Caviar,’ Patty Chang’s ‘Fan Dance,’ and Kate Gilmore’s ‘Star Bright, Star Might.’ ‘Chewing Color’ will be shown at the top of the hour, every hour during the month of April.

Daily News Record July 27, 1995 | Gellers, Stan NEW YORK — Ralph Lauren is dead serious about the tailored clothing business.

So much so, that for the first time in the company’s 28-year history, the designer is using his own name only on both the new purple and blue labels to identify and underscore the company’s move into higher price ranges. However, the Polo Ralph Lauren label continues as the company’s flagship.

As explained by the designer’s brother, Jerry Lauren, senior vice-president, men’s design, Polo Ralph Lauren, “Ralph felt that because Polo was doing so many things, it was time to identify each area.” Thus, the three labels. This move is expected to more than double its tailored clothing business.

And that’s what the new Polo Men’s Tailored Clothing Co. is all about starting with this fall. The world of Polo clothing has grown dramatically and will now cover the waterfront starting with seasonal fabrics for suits at $395 in the Polo Ralph Lauren line to a stratospheric $2,000 for Ralph Lauren purple label — with a lot of stops along the way.

In addition to the long-established Polo Ralph Lauren label is the new purple Ralph Lauren label for top-of-the-line clothing that will be imported from England. New, too, is the Ralph Lauren blue label for upper-moderate canvas clothing made in the U.S.

Both the purple and blue labels separate the designer’s name from the Polo brand. And with this new solo identification, the company is tiering its tailored clothing businesses for the first time to go after three distinct market niches.

The purple label, with suits priced from $1,500 to $2,000, is bespoke British tailoring with roped shoulders and a nipped-in waist. English shirts and ties will also be featured under the purple label.

The blue Ralph Lauren label is contemporary American designer clothing with suits retailing from $795 to $1,195. Sportswear is planned for next fall for this label.

Finally, the ongoing Polo Ralph Lauren label, described as the company’s roots, continues its softly constructed traditional model and includes sportswear and furnishings.

Adding another reason for the major overhaul that broadens Polo’s marketing stance, Dennis Trites, president of the Polo Tailored Clothing Co., explains: “We will finally have the broader product assortment we need to satisfy our growing global business. The Europeans want to buy Ralph Lauren at more price points and as complete collections. Now we have it.” Polo currently does about half its men’s wear volume outside of this country in 75 stores with either the Polo or Ralph Lauren name, both licensed and owned by the American company. There are 55 freestanding Polo stores in this country. Commenting on how the added collections will help grow Polo’s clothing volume, Trites relates, “We’re about 10 percent tailored clothing now, and we would like to feel that with the additional two new labels, we’ll be able to go to 25 percent.” He points out that the new segmented marketing strategy will do more than broaden the company’s total reach. It’s this: Polo’s image in the U.S. as the king of sportswear will get a bit of a makeover starting this fall when tailored clothing becomes more prominent in the company’s advertising. web site ralph lauren couponweb site ralph lauren coupon

It’s even hinted that Lauren himself might become more visible in the future.

Big changes, Trites remarks, will also come in the distribution pattern with regular tailored clothing departments at major stores finally getting a crack at several of the company labels.

In a preview for DNR of the new labels presented in lifestyle settings at the company’s offices here, Jerry Lauren stresses that the purple label clothing “was Ralph’s dream of what a suit should be. It’s a powerful look and everything he would wear himself.” Shown against a rich black and white background with a Steinway baby grand piano as the focal point, the aggressive purple label suit silhouette in single- and double-breasted suits was literally modeled after the clothes the designer had tailored for himself in London.

In sharp contrast and shown in juxtaposition is the new Ralph Lauren blue label collection. The room setting for these suits and sport coats is in a palette of beige through rusty browns, and could have come out of Darryl Zanuck’s home in Hollywood in the late ’30s.

The inspiration for the collection, remarks Lauren, is “Ralph’s purple label signature model.” But for a broader customer appeal, two additional bodies are offered. He describes the suits as “bespoke translated to contemporary clothing made in America. Each body has its own set of specs, because that’s the way Ralph thinks.” The line includes two- and three-button single-breasteds and a six-button double-breasted, which can button one or two buttons. The sleeper, however, is a three-button peak-lapel suit, which, according to Trites, has had a “tremendous response in first showings with some of our customers.” The Polo Ralph Lauren clothing, meanwhile, hasn’t changed. The models still have the company’s signature soft shoulder styling. But they’re visibly different from the purple and blue collections which, according to Lauren, “have much more interest in the sleevehead and the fit at the waist.

“Ralph isn’t interested in high padded shoulders.” The distribution for each of the labels actually reflects the personality of the clothing and the label. The purple label will have limited distribution, with Saks, Neiman Marcus and the Polo stores initially getting the line. In addition to the off-the-peg clothing, made-to-measure will be offered without a surcharge.

The blue label, as noted, will be marketed to regular tailored-clothing departments in department and better specialty stores. This compares with the previous distribution pattern with Polo selling only to Polo stores.

The Polo label will also be sold through Polo stores and also, for the first time, will also be presented in in-store sportswear departments.

Trites points out that in some smaller markets, the Polo clothing will be shown in regular clothing as well as sportswear departments “where the suits will be strongly highlighted. So we’re now covering all bases with all classifications.” He also indicates that with the designer name achieving a separate entity and identity, the company’s Polo Sport label will become that much more powerful on its own.

Adding a footnote on the Polo retail business, the executive points out that many of the American stores are going through arevamping that will add considerably more square footage.

Sales for the trio of labels will currently be handled by the clothing company.

As for the potentials that will open up as a result of the three-tier marketing, Trites continues: “We needed this breakdown to sell more product outside of the U.S. And we’re perceived quite different abroad. In Italy, for example, where most men want to wear Savile Row suits, Ralph Lauren is known for his clothing.

“And in Europe, his name, rather than the Polo brand, is used on some of the stores. We really haven’t used the Ralph Lauren name up to now to sell Europe. Now we have the right product, the image and the different labels to do it.” Gellers, Stan

Currently on view at Deitch Projects’ 18 Wooster Street gallery is an installation by Ryan McGinness featuring a number of new silkscreens, paintings, and sculptures. McGinness’s latest work is a further exercise in exploring a riotous semiotics of pop culture and graphic design, often with a tongue-in-cheek art-historical basis. Over the past decade, McGinness has developed an explosive visual language using iconography derived from contemporary graphic design in a process baldly alluding to the likes of Andy Warhol, Jackson Pollock, and Jean-Michel Basquiat. The images McGinness creates, through a laborious process of sketching, drawing, and computer vectoring, are designed to appear anonymous yet embody a distinctly corporate, ‘edgy’ familiarity. Through repetition and superabundance, individual cultural signifiers dissolve into the abstract. A seemingly appropriated, commoditized language converges into the art object, with McGinness drawing upon his design background to blur the lines between commercial design and fine art. And not satisfied with the boundaries proposed by the object, McGinness expands his iconography beyond the canvas and onto the walls, realizing the world he sees when he closes his eyes for the gallery viewer.

Yesterday morning, Lawrence B. Salander, Upper East Side art dealer and owner of the now bankrupt Salander-O’Reilly Galleries was arrested at his estate on Millbrook, New York. Salander is accused of stealing $88 million from high-profile investors, art owners and Bank of America. The Grand Jury of the State Supreme Court in Manhattan charged him with grand larceny, falsifying business records, scheming to defraud, forgery and perjury. Salander pleaded not guilty and may face up to twenty five years in prison. The Justice ordered a $1 million bail.

States News Service January 11, 2010 GREENVILLE — The following information was released by the United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of North Carolina: in our site employment verification letter

The United States Attorney’s Office announced that in federal court January 8, 2010, MARY ROSE WRIGHT, 43, of Raleigh, North Carolina, pled guilty before United States Magistrate Judge David W. Daniel to wire fraud and conspiring to commit mail fraud, wire fraud, and bank fraud.

A Criminal Information was filed on November 23, 2009. According to the Information, from August, 2006, to November, 2006, WRIGHT, working as a mortgage broker for Fairway Mortgage, worked with others to defraud various financial institutions through the submission of false and fictitious mortgage loan applications. Using a falsified Power of Attorney giving authority on behalf of a co-conspirator to execute all documents in connection with the property purchase, WRIGHT then prepared false United States Individual Income Tax Returns for years 2004 and 2005 and a self-employment verification letter and caused to have prepared a fabricated financial statement to use in obtaining the property. She then submitted an offer to purchase a property. go to site employment verification letter

On November 27, 2006, WRIGHT submitted a loan application, which included false representations regarding borrower’s address, employment, bank account information, and rental real estate schedule, in connection with the purchase of the residential Raleigh property. That same day Equity Services, Inc., loaned a co-conspirator $1,537.500 for the property purchase.

In November, 2006, WRIGHT’s co-conspirator gave her $120,000 from a previously fraudulently obtained mortgage loan from Washington Mutual in the amount of $2,996,969 to be used as a down payment for the purchase of the Raleigh property. On November 27, 2006, WRIGHT took possession of the property after executing a HUD-1 statement containing false and fraudulent information. To date, no mortgage payments have been made.

“In recent years we have seen how pervasive bank fraud has become and how devastating it has been to our banking institutions and our economy. This guilty plea is another step in the Justice Department’s effort to deal with this problem and to ensure integrity in our financial systems,” stated John Stuart Bruce, Acting United States Attorney.

Investigation of this case was conducted by the Internal Revenue Service – Criminal Investigation Division, the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation and the North Carolina Real Estate Commission. This case is being handled by the Office’s Economic Crimes Section, with Assistant United States Attorney Banumathi Rangarajan assigned as prosecutor .

Currently on view at Barbara Gladstone Gallery in New York is a new work by Thomas Hirshhorn. The artist is known for his sprawling installation works that refer to issues of critical theory, global politics, and consumerism. Hirshhorn combines found imagery and texts with constructions made out of cardboard, foil, and packing tape while decorating them in a Do-it-Yourself manner to refer to the overload of visual images and information that we experience on a daily basis.

A Florida art collector is suing Christie’s New York, after his Self-Portrait by Francis Bacon failed to sell at auction in November 2008. Christie’s had offered collector George Weiss a minimum guarantee, but allegedly refused to follow through after Weiss consigned the work. The auction house alludes to the collapse of the art market in its defense.

Following shows at London’s Serpentine Gallery and the National Galleries in Scotland, Gerhard Richter’s work is being featured at the National Portrait Gallery in London, in his third exhibition in the United Kingdom in the last year. Gerhard Richter, 76, is considered one of the world’s most prominent living painters, and has been a fixture of global contemporary art since the mid-1960s.

Portraits focuses on Richter’s trademark portraits, which are actually painted from photographic prints, news clippings and other sources. The sources are never reproduced in exact detail, and are transformed under Richter’s brush into something more ethereal and abstract. This quality is achieved by blurred lines, both literal and figurative: the portraits’ subjects range from the intimate and personal to the historical and public–often intertwined.

Tante Marianne, from 1965, appears to be an innocuous portrait of a teenage girl and a baby. However, the viewer soon learns that Marianne, Richter’s aunt, was schizophrenic and perished as part of a Nazi drive to euthanize the mentally ill. Herr Heyde, also from 1965, is recreated from a news clipping of the trial of the Nazi neurologist who was behind the mass euthanization and other atrocities. However both portraits manage to convey a sense of detachment from its subjects and their context, despite being their being an exploration of ostensibly loaded personal and national narratives.

In fact, Richter proudly and intentionally attempts to strip all narrative from his paintings. Frau mit Schirm appears to be a reproduction of an anonymous woman caught barely suppressing an unidentified but overwhelming emotional reaction. Almost unrecognizable, the image is of Jacqueline Kennedy moments after the assassination of her husband. With the narrative removed, the image becomes ghostly and almost inpenetrable; once the narrative is reintroduced, it creates a tension between what the viewer feels it should elicit and the presentation offered by Richter.

David Zwirner Gallery presents its first solo show of New York-based Philip-Lorca diCorcia’s contemporary photography. 1,000 Polaroids, shot by DiCorcia over a span of 25 years, represent his cinematic approach to photography. Though the works are, upon first view, improvised snapshots, they are not candid at all, but balanced between documentary and staged photography, fact and fiction.

American color-field painter Ellsworth Kelly is showing new paintings (circa 2007-2008) at Matthew Marks in Chelsea. Since he first exhibited his work publicly more than 60 years ago, Kelly has had over 150 one-person exhibitions in museums and galleries around the world. The “Diagonal” series is a collection of eight two-panel paintings consisting of a black or white rectangle overlaid with a contrasting canvas on top, extending beyond the perimeter of the one below.

Currently at Gagosian Gallery is the first major US retrospective of Italian Conceptual artist Piero Manzoni. Manzoni, who died of a heart attack at the age of 29 in 1963, is most notorious for his ‘Merda d’artista,’ 90 sealed cans purportedly containing his feces and sold for the market-value of gold at the time of purchase. The exhibition is curated by Germano Celant, who named the movement Manzoni belonged to, Arte Povera.

Steven Cohen, founder of prominent hedge fund SAC Capital, and his wife Alexandra have lent Sotheby’s 20 artworks valued at $450 million worth of art from their very substantial collection. The works will be displayed from April 2nd to April 14th at Sotheby’s New York headquarters, and will revolve around the female form and its portrayal from 1890 to the present. The exhibition is not tied to a sale, and is entitled Women.

Women III by Willem de Kooning, Turquoise Marilyn by Andy Warhol, Madonna by Edvard Munch, and Le Repos by Pablo Picasso will be amongst the pieces on display, alongside paintings by more contemporary artists such as Lisa Yuskavage and Marlene Dumas. Cohen bought the de Kooning from David Geffen for $137 million, spent $80 million to acquire Turquoise Marilyn from Stefan Edlis, and acquired the Picasso at auction for $34.7 million.

Cohen and his wife are avid collectors, and have accumulated one of the most significant collections of 20th century art in the world, according to Tobias Meyer, Sotheby’s head of contemporary art. Cohen is known for owning a formaldehyde-enclosed shark by Damien Hirst, currently on loan to the Metropolitan Museum in New York, and has been steadily expanding his collection over the last ten years, buying works by major artists.

In a statement released through Sotheby’s, Mr Cohen remarked: “Our collection has not been curated before. It will be an exciting experience for us.”

SAC Capital has also become one of the larger shareholders of Sotheby’s, accumulating a 5.9% stake after its share price has collapsed over the past 6 months due to lackluster results.

Van Dyck and Britain, now showing at the Tate Britain, displays 60 magnificent paintings, drawings, and prints by Belgian-born Sir Anthony Van Dyck. The exhibit also includes a range of supporting and comparative material from public and private collections in Britain and internationally. It tells the story of Van Dyck’s incredible impact on British visual culture and reunites 17th century aristocratic family members such as Katherine, Duchess of Buckingham and her two sons, George II Duke of Buckingham and Lord Francis Villiers, works that have never been displayed together before. Also exhibited are works from his English predecessors such as Peter Lely and John Singer Sargent. The Royal Collection, The National Trust and many private lenders have loaned works to the exhibition.

On 11 March 2009, Jenny Holzer’s traveling exhibition ‘PROTECT PROTECT’ opened at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York. ‘PROTECT PROTECT’, previously at the Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art, includes a number of Holzer’s characteristic LED sign works, but also features painting and installation from the last fifteen years. The majority of the works in the exhibition draws from declassified U.S. government documents and unveils the human presence in the policy making of war, violence and torture. In Red Yellow Looming (2004), LED bars present the viewer with the language of previous U.S. presidents Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton, while Holzer’s Redaction Paintings series (2005-09) expose the experiences of the perpetrators and victims of the policies set out under these under presidencies.

For Yoshitomo Nara’s fourth solo show at Marianne Boesky Gallery, the Japanese pop artist pairs new paintings and drawings with two large-scale sculptures. Created with his collaborative group YNG – formally known as “Yoshitomo Nara + graf – the two stylized pine tree abodes are made of reclaimed wood and recall the feeling of a woodman’s cottage or some surreal abode. The interiors are filled with sketches and doodles created in the artist’s hand, along with stuffed animals that match the playful, fairy-tale feeling of Nara’s work.

You are the Weather (1994-6) by Roni Horn, picture via the Independent

Roni Horn’s work is on display at the Tate Modern, in her most comprehensive retrospective to date and her first solo museum show in London. The show, Roni Horn aka Roni Horn, incorporates works from the beginning of her career in the mid-1970s through the present.

Horn’s oeuvre touches on several recurring themes, namely identity, mutability and water, at least one of which is likely to appear in some form in her pieces. Additionally, the artist also explores relationships between identical objects being presented in different emotional and spatial contexts, thereby creating different experiences of the same subject. The diptych Dead Owl from 1997, and the sculpture Paired Gold Mats — For Ross and Felix from 1994 embody this idea, and are on display at the Tate.

The artist also has a special artistic relationship with Iceland, assembling To Place, a series of photography books on the island, its glaciers, hot springs, volcanoes, geysers and rivers that examine the constant geological flux of that country. The Weather is You, a series put together between 1994 and 1996, is also set in Iceland, consisting of photographs of a young woman emerging from various hot springs under different climactic conditions, which in turn subtly affect her facial expression and the composition of the photograph.

The rest of the exhibit is comprised of various photographic installations and sculptures that typically employ glass as a medium, but may also contain a diverse array of media ranging from gold to rubber. The west windows of the Tate will be uncovered so as to expose Horn’s sculptures to shifting natural light, which will interact with the glass, water and other media in unique ways, rendering each experience of the work as exceptional.

Currently on show at Metro Pictures is Tony Oursler’s ‘Cell Phones Diagrams Cigarettes Searches and Scratch Cards.’ The show consists of fourteen new works, ranging from installations to wall pieces. The pieces revolve around juxtaposition: painting merges with video and objects are either oversized or minute. Within the works, Oursler deals with issues such as phobia, obsession and addiction. One of the larger installations in the exhibition is a forest of projected cigarettes that endlessly smolder and restore themselves over and over again. The show will run through 11 April 2009.

Long Island City isn’t the typical location for high-profile New York art openings, nor is Queens on a Friday night during Armory Week the usual hotspot for glossy fashion and art hordes. Then again, it’s been eight years since Vanessa Beecroft last staged one of her infamous performances in the city. Judging from the crowd gathered outside on the East River waterfront and inside the brightly-lit warehouse, Deitch Projects managed to time her re-entry perfectly.

Beginning February 21st, Moderna Museet in Stockholm will host a traveling retrospective of the Andreas Gursky’s photography. Coming from the Museum Haus Lange in Krefeld, Germany, the exhibition includes work dating back to his studies under Bernd and Hilla Becher. Many of the photographs have been reprinted in a smaller format: a marked change considering that most of Gursky’s photographs are very large, sometimes over sixteen feet wide. The exhibition includes over 150 works spanning the artist’s encyclopedic career. He is well known for his expansive, detached, and often digitally-altered images that seemingly catalogue the phenomena of the world.

Following the show at Moderna Museet, the show will continue on to the Vancouver Art Gallery from May 30-September 20, 2009.